5 Lessons I Learned in 2025

Today’s letter is brought to you by Lava ! Lava’s bitcoin line of credit (BLOC) allows you to unlock your bitcoin’s purchasing power— instantly, flexibly, and securely— without selling your bitcoin. Now through the end of the year, Lava is offering a special promotional rate to all borrowers. Anyone who opens a BLOC this month will lock in a 5% interest rate, fixed for a full year. This is the last month to secure this rate for 2026. With Lava Refinance , you can easily bring your existing loans over to Lava and access the lowest fixed interest rates in the industry. Their white glove client services team will help you through the whole process. Lava allows you to borrow dollars in real time with no monthly payments, open terms, and full flexibility. Plus, you earn 5% APY on your USD balance, buy bitcoin with zero fees, and off-ramp globally. Grow your bitcoin wealth— without ever selling your bitcoin. Lock In Your 5% Rate Today To investors, I wanted to share five lessons I learned this year as we head into the final two weeks of the year. First, always question the mainstream narrative. The tariff panic in the first half of 2025 led many investors to sell assets, predict a big crash, or generally find themselves offsides in financial markets. I was fortunate to avoid this trap by doing my own analysis of source material to better understand what had happened in 2018 when tariffs were levied against various goods ( read that letter here ). In hindsight, I was able to identify the need for this analysis because I recognized a pattern that raised red flags. The consensus narrative is almost always wrong as soon as dissent is outlawed. We saw this during the COVID situation and it was easy to spot when people were labeled lunatic MAGA cheerleaders for merely suggesting that tariffs wouldn’t lead to sky-high inflation, empty shelves, or the next Great Depression. Lesson: Always question the consensus and look for moments where dissent is outlawed. My second lesson of the year was market structure can overwhelm narratives and vibes. Bitcoin is the perfect example. Everyone was excited going into the year because Trump was aspiring to be the first bitcoin President, the ETFs were gobbling up capital, and Wall Street was poised to embrace the digital industry. Although bitcoin performed well in the first half of the year, it eventually crashed nearly 40% from the all-time high and left many investors disappointed in its performance. The reason for this lack of sustained appreciation is a combination of heavy call selling, large liquidations on October 10th, and immense profit taking by OG whales. The vibes were good. The narrative was immaculate. But the market structure was ultimately too powerful of a force. Lesson: Sometimes you have to tune out the noise and study the market structure. My third lesson of the year is that bubbles are sexy, but remain very rare. We saw this play out well in the public market related to AI. It seems like tons of people watched the Big Short movie and now they want to call the next big market crash. It became cool to be a bear at some point in the last few years. The stock market doesn’t care about those people’s feelings or opinions though. Innovation helps create value out of thin air and that is what artificial intelligence has been doing. The idea that a bubble could form and pop, while the market players are saying they can’t keep up with demand, is quite comical. I have yet to find a person who claims AI won’t be valuable over time, but there are a lot of questions about the financial return on the significant investments being made. Those are fair questions that should be asked. But predicting the next Great Financial Crisis every two months doesn’t make a lot of sense. I am often reminded of the Bill Gates quote, “we overestimate what we can do in one year and underestimate what we can do in ten years.” Lesson: Fear porn is popular now. Supply and demand are still undefeated though. My fourth lesson of the year is that gambling is America’s favorite activity. We had an explosion of examples throughout the year. Zero day options are dominating the market. Levered ETFs with 3x or 5x leverage continue to be launched on single name stocks. Sports gambling has been sweeping the nation. And prediction markets have pulled off the greatest rebrand of all time by convincing people they are predicting the future rather than gambling on the weather, the color of someone’s tie, or whether an active shooter is going to be caught in the first 48 hours. I don’t claim some moral high ground because I believe that all financial markets are speculation, which is just a fancy way to describe gambling. If you buy stocks, you are ultimately gambling. If you buy options, you are gambling. If you buy cryptocurrency, you are gambling. It is just that these investment related activities have much better odds of success than buying a lottery ticket, sitting at a blackjack table, or letting a triple parlay fly on NFL Sunday. Lesson: America is addicted to gambling. Choose your form of gambling wisely. My fifth lesson of the year is that public markets are going to become much more popular with the younger generation of entrepreneurs in the coming years. It used to be cool to stay private for as long as possible. SpaceX is talking about going public next year. Medline just went public after nearly a half century. OpenAI and others are eyeing the public market as well. People are realizing the public market has better access to capital and the market scrutiny forces you to run a better business. Add in the fact that the private market returns for the average venture fund are getting squeezed because of the amount of capital pouring into that sector and you can see why founders, executives, and investors will begin leveraging the public markets once again. This will have a profound impact on the companies that choose this route, but also on the millions of investors who have been boxed out of some of the best investment opportunities due to lack of access or antiquated accreditation laws. Lesson: Public markets are going to be popular once again. These are the five lessons from 2025 that are top of mind right now. I usually take the last two weeks of the year to debrief myself on what went well, what mistakes did I make, and what were the main lessons I learned. If I come up with other information that I think would be valuable for everyone, I will send more conclusions in another letter. Hope everyone has a great end to their week. I’ll talk to you on Monday. - Anthony Pompliano Founder & CEO, Professional Capital Management Larry Fink Is Right About Bitcoin Anthony and John Pompliano break down what’s really happening in the bitcoin market — why price has stalled, how volatility is evolving, and what most investors are missing about the next phase of this cycle. We also dig into the Federal Reserve’s rate-cut debate, the broader economic backdrop, and how liquidity conditions are shaping risk assets — with a brief touch on BUD/S training and why discipline matters in markets and life. Enjoy! Podcast Sponsors Figure - Need liquidity without selling your crypto? Figure’s Crypto-Backed Loans allow you to borrow against your BTC, ETH, or SOL with 12-month terms and lowest rates in the industry at 8.91%. Access instant cash or buy more Bitcoin without triggering a tax event. https://figuremarkets.co/pomp Abra - This podcast is sponsored by Abra. Abra is the secure way to access crypto and crypto based yield and loan products through a separately managed account. www.abra.com. Bitizenship – Get Italian Residency with €250k investment in Bitcoin Startup Italy , maintaining Bitcoin exposure. Book a free strategy call at bitizenship.com/pomp . BitcoinIRA - Buy, sell, and swap 75+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Pay less taxes. Earn up to $1,000 in rewards . Arch Public - Arch Public’s cutting-edge algorithm tools ignite profits, harnessing razor-sharp data analytics to nail perfect entries, exits, and risk management. Turn volatility into opportunity and do it hands free with Arch Public. (Oh, and yes, try us out for FREE too!) Defi Development Corp - DeFi Development Corp. (Nasdaq: DFDV) is building the first Solana-focused public treasury, giving investors exponential exposure to Solana’s growth. Uphold - Uphold is the all-in-one platform to trade, earn, stake, and swap across 300+ assets with real-time proof-of-reserves and any-to-any conversions. Manage your entire crypto portfolio in one place at www.uphold.com Bitwise Asset Management - Crypto specialist asset manager with more than $10 billion client assets and more than 30 crypto solutions across ETFs, index funds, alpha strategies, staking, and more. Learn more at bitwiseinvestments.com Xapo Bank : Fully licensed private bank and virtual assets services provider that integrates traditional finance and Bitcoin. Earn up to 3.5% in BTC over USD Savings. Spend globally with a debit card that gives up to 1% cashback in BTC. The Pomp Audience Exclusive: Receive $150 discount when they join with this link . Simple Mining offers a premium white-glove Bitcoin mining service. Want to grow your Bitcoin stack? Visit https://www.simplemining.io/ Bitlayer - Bitlayer is powering Bitcoin beyond just a store of value, making Bitcoin DeFi a reality while staying true to its core principles of security and decentralization. Learn more about Bitlayer at https://x.com/BitlayerLabs 🚨READER NOTE: If you want to sponsor The Pomp Letter, you can fill out this form and someone from our team will get in touch with you. You are receiving The Pomp Letter because you either signed up or you attended one of the events that I spoke at. Feel free to unsubscribe if you aren’t finding this valuable. Nothing in this email is intended to serve as financial advice. Do your own research.